An ideal tumor marker should be capable of being detected at any stage of the disease. However, gastric cancer patients do not always have elevated serum carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) levels, even in advanced cases. Recently, several studies have investigated the associations between preoperative PNI and postoperative long-term outcomes. In this study, we focused on the significance of the prognostic nutritional index (PNI) as a potential predictor of survival in resectable gastric cancer patients with normal preoperative serum CEA levels. We retrospectively conducted cohort study to evaluate the PNI as a predictor of survival in 368 resectable gastric cancer patients who underwent potentially curative gastrectomy at our institute between January 2010 and December 2016. We selected 218 patients by propensity score matching to reduce biases due to the different distributions of co-variables among the comparable groups. In the multivariate analysis, pStage (hazard ratio [HR]: 14.003, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 5.033–44.487; p < 0.001), PNI (HR: 2.794, 95% CI: 1.352–6.039; p < 0.001) were identified as independent prognostic factors of CSS in 218 propensity matched gastric cancer patients. The Kaplan-Meier analysis demonstrated that low PNI patients had a significantly poorer cancer specific survival (CSS) than high PNI patients (p = 0.008). Among 166 propensity matched gastric cancer patients with normal preoperative serum CEA levels, multivariate analysis demonstrated that pStage (HR: 7.803, 95% CI: 3.015–24.041; p < 0.001) and PNI (HR: 3.078, 95% CI: 1.232–8.707; p = 0.016) were identified as independent prognostic factors of CSS. And Kaplan-Meier analysis demonstrated that low PNI had a significantly poorer CSS than high PNI value (p = 0.011). This study demonstrates that a low preoperative PNI value is a potential independent risk factor for poorer CSS in patients with gastric cancer, even in those with normal serum CEA levels.

Background: The purpose of the present study is to investigate the utility of prognostic nutritional index (PNI) as a simple and readily available marker in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC).Methods: We retrospectively analyzed 169 patients who underwent potentially curative esophagectomy, for histologically verified ESCC. We decided to set the optimal cutoff value for preoperative PNI levels at 49.2, based on the cancer‐specific survival (CSS) and the overall survival (OS) by receiver operating characteristic curve analysis.Results: Multivariate logistic regression analysis identified that TNM pStage III [hazard ratio (HR) 3.261, p < 0.0001] and PNI < 49.2 (HR 3.887, p < 0.0001) were confirmed as independent poor predictive factors for CSS, and age >70 (HR 2.024, p < 0.0042), TNM pStage III (HR 2.510, p = 0.0002), and PNI < 49.2 (HR 2.248, p = 0.0013) were confirmed as independent poor predictive factors for OS. In non‐elderly patients, TNM pStage III (CSS; HR 3.488, p < 0.0001, OS; HR 2.615, p = 0.0007) and PNI < 49.2 (CSS; HR 3.849, p < 0.0001, OS; HR 2.275, p = 0.001) were confirmed as independent poor predictive factors for CSS, and OS when multivariate logistic regression analysis was applied. But in elderly patients, univariate analyses demonstrated that the TNM pStage III was the only significant risk factor for CSS (HR 3.701, p = 0.0057) and OS (HR 1.974, p = 0.0224).Conclusions: The PNI was a significant and independent predictor of CSS and OS of ESCC patients after curative esophagectomy. The PNI was cost‐effective and readily available, and it could act as a marker of survival.

Despite recent improvements in early detection, progress in surgical techniques, and development of chemoradiation therapies, prognosis of esophageal cancer remains poor worldwide. Surgery is the mainstay treatment for esophageal cancer, but an appreciable proportion of patients with advanced esophageal cancer develop recurrence, even after curative resection. Therefore, accurately predicting the prognosis is needed to improve patient survival and to provide an appropriate preoperative patient counseling.

It is now clear that cancer survival is determined not only by tumor pathology but also by host-related factors, in particular, nutritional status and systemic inflammation. It is desirable that the essential properties of any scale designed or intended to be used for the prediction of survival are simple, convenient, and objective. In this study, we retrospectively reviewed the database of patients who underwent curative surgery for esophageal cancer in our department to evaluate controlling nutritional status (CONUT) and neutrophil–lymphocyte ratio (NLR) as predictors of cancer-specific survival (CSS) after esophagectomy. We retrospectively reviewed the database of 148 consecutive patients who underwent potentially curative surgery for histologically verified esophageal squamous cell carcinoma at our institute between January 2002 and December 2014. CONUT and NLR were calculated. On multivariate analysis, pTNM stage (P < 0.0001) and CONUT (P = 0.0291) were independently associated with worse prognosis. Multivariate analysis evaluated the prognostic factors in 2 different patient groups: patients younger than 70 years (nonelderly) and those aged 70 years or more (elderly). Multivariate analysis demonstrated that pTNM stage (P = 0.0083) and CONUT (P = 0.0138) were the independent risk factors for a worse prognosis among the nonelderly group, whereas univariate analysis demonstrated that pTNM stage (P = 0.0002) was the only independent risk factor for a worse prognosis among the elderly group. CONUT was a significant predictor of CSS in patients with esophageal cancer in this study. However, pTNM stage remained a significantly more powerful predictor of CSS. Therefore, the results of this study suggested that CONUT and pTNM stage are the significant and complementary factors predicting survival in patients with esophageal cancer. But, this study failed to confirm the NLR as a significant predictor of CSS after resection for esophageal cancer.